Blue Moon Read Online Free PDF

take refuge in the swamp. Her head still ached from the knock against the log, and her wrist was still swollen and tender, but not nearly as bad as it had been last night. When she thought of how she felt a score older than she had a year ago, she remembered that today was her birthday. Amazingly, she had lived long enough to see nineteen, but there would be no celebration. She would pass this day as she had most every day since she had been taken from her family. She would see to her immediate needs, do whatever it took to survive, try to find a way to get back home to them again.
    But now, the fragile illusion that she might be safe here in Noah LeCroix’s treehouse had just been shattered. She had to get away. She looked out the window above the bed, out at the cloudy sky beyond the lattice of leaves. She was literally up a tree and there was no way down, no way out of the swamp without LeCroix’s help. All she could do was hope and pray that when he came back in, he would not give in to temptation and desire, that he would continue to keep his need in check.

Chapter 3
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    To the casual observer, everything in Darcy Lankanal’s world was perfect. As sole owner of a thriving house of chance, liquor, and prostitution, he had a fortune piled up in the bank of New Orleans as well as in a metal box hidden in the wall behind the headboard on his bed. The establishment, inherited from his mother, was named the Palace of Angels and boasted the best gaming tables, the finest liquor, and the most beautiful women in the entire South. His clothing was tailored in France and, despite his usually less than respectable occupation, he was admired by those who deemed themselves the upper crust of Creole society—so much so that he was often invited to their soirees and fetes.
    But all was not right in Darcy’s world, nor had it been since Olivia Bond disappeared more than a month ago.
    Darcy took a pull on his cigar, blew out a lazy blue smoke ring and watched it fade into the haze of the salon’s smoke-filled air. Then he reached up and ran his palm over his neat blond hair. As he smoothed his hand down the striped waistcoat beneath his double-breasted cutaway jacket, he easily hid his frustration and turmoil, smiled his most charming, carefree smile, and perused the salon.
    His mother, Nicolette, God rest her soul, had taught him that the secret of a well-run establishment of any kind was the ever-vigilant, constant presence of its owner. Darcy always took his mama’s advice to heart.
    During what appeared to be nothing more than a casual stroll around the huge salon and gaming room, Darcy greeted familiar customers, sized up strangers, flashed eye contact to his many well-paid and therefore very loyal dealers and bartenders, and calculated exactly how much liquor was leaving the bar. His patrons included riverboat captains, wealthy foreign travelers, and plantation owners, and all of them considered themselves lucky to be able to sit elbow to elbow, hunched over cards and dice at his nearly twenty tables. Thieves and cutthroats were not allowed.
    Upstairs, the whores known as “Darcy’s ladies” were busy making him almost as much money as he would clear downstairs. He had hand-picked and personally trained each and every one of them since he’d inherited the Palace. Each one had been his own special “property” at one time or another, his alone to savor and enjoy, to pamper and coddle while she remained ensconced in his personal suite until a new, virginal initiate came along.
    Two or three months spent with a new girl had been his routine until Olivia Bond entered his life. Now, despite the noise in the smoky salon, even as he wandered about observing the proceedings, Darcy could still see Olivia’s face, hear her voice, smell her, taste her on his lips.
    Somehow the stubborn little witch with coal-black hair and fern-green eyes had gotten under his skin more than any woman before her. Somehow she